I remember the first time it happened.
It was my sixth birthday, and for the one and only time, I was the coolest kid in school. Because for my party we were going to watch Star Wars—at home.
Seems like nothing now, but this was 1980. VCRs were barely consumer items—my dad had one for work—and the only video store in the entire greater Detroit area was an hour’s drive away. So the notion that we could sit down and watch the most important movie in the history of history, that we could do it at will, well. It was something.
So there was pizza and cake and Coke and then we all piled into the family room, every inch of space taken up by sprawling six year old boys. We gasped at the Super Star Destroyer, shivered at Vader’s management techniques, felt illicit tingles imagining Leia telling us we were her only hope. All too soon the rebels were making their all-or-nothing run at the Death Star, and it was looking bad. Most of the squad had been blown up, and Luke was alone in the trench, his wingmen down and Vader behind him, prepping to fire—
And then with a “Yeee-hoooo!!” Han Solo piloted the Falcon out of the solar flare and sent Vader spinning into space, and I started crying.
If I’d had any illusions about remaining cool, they evaporated pretty quickly.
I’m 41 now, and I just rewatched the scene—research, you know—and damned if I didn’t choke up again. Big, fat, manly tears.
Very uncool at six, but I’m used to it now. I look forward to it. It’s a hit of pure primal joy, a howl of belief in friendship and hope and the triumph of good over evil. My wife has caught me doing it a million times. She laughs at me. My daughter is three, but I fully expect that when she gets older, the two of them will get enormous joy out of mocking me for it.
Because it’s not just a Star Wars thing. Most of the films and shows and books I love have at least a moment like that. A moment when the stakes are at their highest, and all hope seems lost, and then at the last possible second, fidelity and self-sacrifice make the impossible real, and I start sniffling.
It happens in The Matrix, when they’re rescuing Morpheus, and Neo wraps the strap around his arm and locks himself in place because he knows that Trinity will be grabbing for it—even though that strap is attached to a plummeting helicopter.
It happens in George R.R. Martin’s A Storm of Swords, when Daenerys is buying the Unsullied with one of her dragons—and orders them to kill every man with a whip, as her dragon roasts a slaver medium-well.
In Guardians of the Galaxy, when the Nova Corps pilots interlock to form a blockade, and then hold it together even as they are slowly crushed.
In Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, when an eleven-year-old Ender organizes the ragtag and the rejects into the finest army in Battle School.
It happens every time Joss Whedon is involved in something, so the moment I’ll cherry pick is in Serenity, when River says it’s her turn to protect Simon, leaps out the closing blast doors and throws the medkit back through.
Damn it, I honestly just choked up typing that. Keep it between us, will you?
These moments go deep in me. They’re a fundamental part of who I am as a person, as an audience member, as a reader—and especially as a writer.
My goal as a novelist is to create smart entertainment, books that keep bright people up too late, that make them want to read just one more chapter. Books that have ideas threaded in amidst the thrilling bits, ideas that I hope linger even after people close the book.
But more than anything, I hope to create those moments of fidelity and friendship and doing the right goddamn thing. Doing it when the costs are enormous and the night is at its darkest. Doing it when it would be so much easier not to.
In a lot of ways, that’s really the reason that I wrote the Brilliance Trilogy. Yes, I wanted to talk about the costs of intolerance and satirize the flaws in our own systems and explore the jittery fear we all seem prone to these last years.
But I also hoped to make people I don’t know cry. Cry big, fat, happy tears.
I don’t know if I succeed or not. I hope so. But I suspect even the trying is worthwhile. I suspect I’m not the only one who tears up at those moments.
At least, I hope not. Don’t leave me hanging. Comment, and tell me what gets that reaction from you. I’ll be watching, and responding—and hopefully, discovering some new stories to cry over.
This article was originally featured in the That Was Awesome! Writers On Writing series, on January 12, 2016.
Marcus Sakey’s thrillers have been nominated for more than fifteen awards. His novel Good People was made into a movie starring James Franco and Kate Hudson, and Brilliance is currently in development with Legendary Pictures. The final novel in the Brilliance series, Written in Fire, is available now. Sakey lives in Chicago with his wife and daughter.
The Two Towers during the battle of Helm’s Deep when, just when all hope seems lost, Gandalf and Eomer appear and charge down the slope to the King.
@1 Oh, but for me even more it’s Eowyn’s defiance of the Witch-king, standing over her uncle.
“I will protect those who cannot protect themselves.” The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson.
The HMS Fearless, blind to her rescuers, stays the course so she can do the most possible damage to enemy before she is destroyed. Honor of the Queen, David Weber.
“Sturm’s sun shattered.” Dragons of Winter Night, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
When the Iron Giant flies up to intercept the missile.
I can think of so many. But two memorable ones would be…
The Prince Serg coming to the rescue in The Vor Game, Lois Bujold.
“What in hell’s that? It’s too big to be that fast. It’s too fast to be that big.”
The finale of Dust of Dreams, Steven Erikson.
Strangers, you bring pain. You bring suffering. You bring to so many dreams the dust of death.
But, strangers, I am Icarium.
And I bring far worse.
In Glory, when Matthew Broderick leads the 54th to the front of the line on the beach.
“There’s more to fighting than rest, sir. There’s character. There’s strength of heart.”
I have one that invariably makes me cry with happiness… even thinking about it makes me tear up. No sure if you have ever seen the movie “A Love Song for Bobby Long” but it is near the end and it is a combination of a brilliant story and brilliant acting. I don’t want to give too much away, because spoilers, but if you haven’t seen the movie go watch it!
Alternatively, the scene in “V for Vendetta” where Nathalie Portman’s character walks out into the rain after having been freed from the fake prison that V set up for her.
Oh and also… Gladiator!!! My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.
From A March North, by Graydon Saunders:
Tolkien, naturally, had a word for this: “I coined the word ‘eucatastrophe’: the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued it is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce).”
My favorite is the one from the books, where in the middle of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, Eomer sees the ships of the Corsairs of Umbar coming up the river, and lifts up his sword to defy them without hope of prevailing against them…and then the ship in the lead raises Aragorn’s standard.
Apollo 13 – “Well don’t you worry, honey. If they put wings on a washing machine, my Jimmy could fly it.” That expression of a mother’s faith gets me every time.
“PIPPIN: I didn’t think it would end this way.
GANDALF: End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.
PIPPIN: What? Gandalf? See what?
GANDALF: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.
PIPPIN: Well, that isn’t so bad.
GANDALF: No. No, it isn’t.”
The end of Kushiel’s Avatar, when the Night Court is journeying down the hill in beauty and wonder, to join in the city-wide fete. Every…damn…time…
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Gandalf did not move. And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the city, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of wizardry and war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.
And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns. In dark Mindolluin’s sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the North wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last.
Aaaand I’m tearing up just typing this. I first read it in 1969 when I was 12 years old. If it ever ceased to move me, it’ll be time to put me on that iceberg and give it a shove.
Not a genre film by definition, but the one scene that has always had me crying is at the end of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles where Steve Martin’s character heads back to the train station realizing that something just isn’t right and it comes out that the sweet, happy go-lucky, sometimes annoying Del is actually homeless and his wife has been dead for several years?!? Hits me in the heart every time. I watch it each Thanksgiving and get my cry on.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, when the Stein Table cracks.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when Luna, Ernie, and Seamus cast their Patronuses through the darkness.
Heroes of Olympus, The House of Hades, Damasen shows up.
Of course the Battle of the Pelennor Fields has so many of those moments!
The Princess Bride, “Drop. Your. Sword.”
This is the very best thing about a well-told story!
Two from The Return of the King, both of which have already been named above:
Naomi @@@@@ 16 –
and Bibliobeque @@@@@ 10 –
These were two of my favorite scenes in the book, and they’re the kind that are hard, if not impossible, to capture correctly in visual media. They did a better job with the arrival of the Rohirrim in the Peter Jackson version, especially the extended edition, where Gandalf is actually battling the Witch King at the moment. But the arrival of the Corsairs, with Eomer’s defiance, and the rapid fire mood swings of the scene, were going to be very difficult to capture (and in fact, the Rankin/Bass version was able to do this better, with Gandalf’s VO). But the emotion of this passage:
I’ll also do one that nobody has mentioned yet:
“I’ll join you when hell freezes over! Dumbledore’s Army!” Neville Longbottom’s CMOA.
So many that have already been listed but the first for me was Lloyd Alexander’s The Book of Three quintet, specifically the end of the final book The High King. I was 8-9 the first time I read it and there’s a line at the very end about the ending being “happy, heartbreaking or both, you dear readers must decide for yourselves” that made me burst into tears, and immediately go back to the beginning and start over.
I have to add a new and unexpected one: The No Man’s Land scene in the Wonder Woman movie.
@1
I’d like to add that moment when Gandalf, one of the great wizards of the Age, opened a can of whoopass on the forces of Mordor. Oh, wait, that didn’t happen. Gandalf, one of the great wizards of the Age, threw maybe 3 spells the entire trilogy. He couldn’t even toss a magic missile to light the watchfire.
So soo many from the Lord of the Rings. Two of my favorite.
Gimli:
Never thought I’d die fighting side by side with an Elf.
Legolas:
What about side by side with a friend?
Gimli:
Aye. I could do that.
Then there was Eowyn fearlessly stating “I am no man” as she rammed her sword into the face of the Nazgûl
Oh, believe me, you are not alone (as all these comments also prove). I, for one, am a total crybaby.
I TOTALLY agree with everybody quoting Tolkien here, and also with Noblehunter @3 and johnnywireless @8.
There are so many I could like to add that I cannot even remember half of them so quickly. But from Ilona Andrews’s Kate Daniels #6, “Magic rises”, when the shapeshifters are escaping Hugh’s castle and Aunt B stays behind to give the others a chance, knowing very well that she herself will not make it out alive. Or the end of Katherine Addison’s “The Goblin Emperor” (half of the book, actually), where Maia comes to the realisation he does have friends and people who care for him. When in Cooper’s “Deerslayer”, Natty sacrifies himself to what he knows might easily be his death so that his best friend Chingachgook could escape alive with his bride Wah-ta-Wah. When in “The Magnificent Seven” Faraday takes the dynamite and blows everything to kingdom come to save the others. When in “The Eagle”, feverstruck Marcus is ready to make his last stand against the seal people and Esca arrives with thelost legioners Well, I could go on and on, but obviously, the list is long enough already as it is.
TLotR is chock full of such moments.
The WoT series has quite a few, but among the ones that affected me most were Dumai’s Wells and the Cleansing of the Source.
“Fix Bayonets.” We Were Soldiers. The entire end sequence, culminating in the helicopter gunships showing up to break the enemy line just when it seemed that the charge would stall and the entire unit would get slaughtered.
Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) shooting at the tank on the bridge with his pistol, only to see it explode from an air strike.
The best Wheel of Time such moment might just be this:
From Chanur’s Homecoming:
“Tahar!” Pyanfar cried, “Gods rot you, I forgive you!”
John Varley’s short story “The Phantom of Kansas.” The scene that starts, “Standing in front of the towering mural was a man.” Gets me every time.
This is why I love Tor.
Thanks a lot!
The ending of Keith Laumer’s Bolo story, “Field Test”:
Not a happy one, but the final line of Lincoln’s Dreams. ‘I have picked up a nail.’
“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.”
“My Chief Rabbit has told me to stay and defend this run, and until he says otherwise, I shall stay here. –Bigwig”
I have serious feelings about Watership Down.
Since the Discworld books are so far missing, I want to throw in a Vines moment from Thud!. When he throws an axe into the flamethrower of a deep down dwarf in koom valley yelling:
IT GOES HRUGH! THAT’S NOT MY COW!
Buffy The Vampire Slayer Graduation gets me every single time.
I’ll add my agreement to the aforementioned LOTR moments, especially the last ride of the rohirrim, so I’m trying to think of some non-obvious ones…
HERE BE SPOILERS
Farscape – talyn and crais sacrifice themselves to scupper scorpy’s wormhole weapon by starbursting inside the hanger of his dreadnought.
The nightmare stacks – the host of the morningstar empire go up against the British army, including a dogfight between firewyrms and the RAF.
Gogol bordello, start wearing purple (live) – the live part is crucial. The crowd has been bumping for the first half of the song but then you get to the bridge and just Sergey with his violin screaming START WEARING PURPLE FOR ME NOWWWWW… and that’s when the crowd go INSANE and you feel alive.
Spoilers for The Heart of Valour by Tanya Huff,
Something of an inversion at the climax, when the heroes need a last minute rescue and suddenly there’s the series’ recurring battleship scaring the pirates off.
Except it’s just the reporter running a massive bluff.
So what’s the word for something that starts out as a eucatastrophe but turns into something like an interrupted sneeze?
After already vocaling my agreement, I gave it some more thought and couldn’t help but to come and point these two scenes out again, because they are just. so. breathtaking.
The numerously-aforementioned Ride of The Rohirrim. “Rohan had come at last.” And its depiction on the big screen *shivers*.
And Aragorn (movie-version). “My friends, you bow to no one.” After all these years, still gets me every time.
Typing this, I decided to add a third one. The Battle of the Five Armies. Thorin’s company charging out of the Lonely Mountain. Say what you will, it was beautiful.
Two in White Gold Wielder: when Covenant dreams up a solution to break through the gates, and later when we finally learn why Vain was following them around the whole time.
Pretty much everything in ‘Serenity’:
“Shiny. Let’s be bad guys”
“And that’s not incense.”
“Can’t stop the signal, Mal.”
“I aim to misbehave”
“They’re gonna see us coming.” “No. They’re not gonna see this coming.”
“I am a leaf on the wind.”
“My turn”
*
GOT – The Battle of the Bastards [amongst many, many others]
*
The Guardians of the Galaxy [1 and 2]
“We are Groot…”
I always get chocked up at scenes like that, every single scene you named chokes me up, and so many others have been named by other posters.
But scene that REALLY got to me was in fairly recent Brandon Sanderson superhero novel. Reckoners series.
A world in which every superpowered being is evil. Where use of super powers MAKES one evil, even the best, kindest people in the world.
A line that made me cry was so simple, just three words:
“Megan had arrived.”
I love seeing all the Tolkien references, since that was my first though too, and of course he coined the term for this particular phenomenon :D
I would say the ending of Hero of Ages (first Mistborn series) did it for me, when Elend and Vin both sacrifice themselves. I actually did have a few tears in my eyes.
C’mon people, nobody has mentioned the end of the dogfight in Independence Day? I love most of the other scenes described, but this just seems appropriate for the da.
“Hello, boys! I’m BAAAAAAACK!”
Fantasy / Sci-Fi
The finale of Forever Knight :
“So I suppose to you I am the devil?
“No, Lacroix.”
[beat]
“You are my closest friend.”
“Damn you, Nicholas!”
Test of the Twins
“Farewell, my brother.”
And the flower starting to grow again in ET.
Thunder and Lightning’s arrival in Pratchett’s Wee Free Men:
It gets even better from there …
In Brent Weeks’ Lightbringer series, there’s a moment with small, honestly inconsequential stakes that made me bawl like a babe when I first realized what had happened. After working hard for the whole book to get into the Blackguard, Kip misses by one slot. Then in a book full of devious and underhanded characters, the one completely honourable figure finds a blatant loophole. “A blackguard’s training is never finished, but is testing over for the day? [A moment later] Training accident.”
I’ve been re-reading my favorite series a lot lately. I always seem to find some new part that makes me laugh out loud or get teary. On my most recent re-read of Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. The story of the boy with the golden screw in his bellybutton that Kvothe tells around the campfire as he, Tempi, Marten, Dedan, and Hespe are searching the Eld for bandits. Just thinking about it makes me laugh uncontrollably, I’m cackling about it right now as I type!!!!
Something from history always gets me–the 20th Maine Bayonet charge at Little Round Top in the battle of Gettysburg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL-5uyp44WA
@47 Yep and considering that it was true and the fate of our nation was in the balance made it so real.
One more I would like to add.
SPOILERS
Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series. When Eddie Dean dies, I cried through the entire time it took for him die, he was one of my favorite fictional characters ever, and he had become a ‘friend’ that I knew I would miss.
There are many good ones here and many I have never read. I remember reading an interview with Weis and Hickman where they talked about fan reaction to Sturm’s great moment. However – the first one of these I recall in my life and the first book that made me cry was ‘The Fox Busters’ by Dick King Smith and the actions of Massey Ferguson, father to the three pullets.
It’s not quite the same sort of moment, but I used have a hard time watching the final scene of Cool Runnings without tearing up.
@49 I think I saw something in the Annotated books that Sturm’s arc was always planned to end there. It was a sucker-punch before they became the fad. That’s part of the reason why I thought of it for this post.
Though more in line with the OP is Laurana’s moment immediately after when she uses the Dragon Orb successfully, so that Sturm’s death meant something.
Matthew @50, that was a good scene.